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Hello all,

I have been trying to resolve a problem that many of you would probably never be confronted with, but I'll give it a shot anyway!

When exporting French Bible versions from BW9 into a Word document in French, with French set as the default language in Word, the Bible verses are imported as English language text; i.e., the spell checker sees them as English words and applies the English check to them. Of course, this doesn't work: practically every word is underlined as misspelt.

Obviously, I can highlight the text in my Word document, then go into "language" and change it manually to French. That's what I've been doing up to now. But it requires 3-4 additional steps and when I'm preparing a course with frequent Scripture quotations (as I'm doing right now), it quickly becomes laborious...

So my question is this: is there any setting in Bible works that would allow me to export French text as French text?

I imagine anyone working with other languages would have the same problem I do. Have others run up against this? If nothing exists at present that would allow different languages to be exported for what they are, would it be possible to add this feature in a subsequent version of BW (or, better, as a patch in BW9)? (Question for the folks at BW!)

Thanks Greg for pointing me to this. I suppose setting up a macro in Word could be a solution. If there is any way of changing the output text already at the BW level, that would be simpler, though. I'm still open to other suggestions, although if there is nothing else, I will definitely give the macro solution a try!

I have experienced the issue that you are now experiencing. It is not a BibleWorks problem. It is a Microsoft Office 2010 issue. I cannot remember exactly how I did it; it took a little time and patience. But there is a setting(s) in Word that you need to tinker with to ensure that the right spellchecker and language are active. I eventually got it working. To reiterate, it is a setting in Word that you need to adjust, not BibleWorks.

I have experienced the issue that you are now experiencing. It is not a BibleWorks problem. It is a Microsoft Office 2010 issue. I cannot remember exactly how I did it; it took a little time and patience. But there is a setting(s) in Word that you need to tinker with to ensure that the right spellchecker and language are active. I eventually got it working. To reiterate, it is a setting in Word that you need to adjust, not BibleWorks.

Irving

Thanks Irving. It's nice to know that at least I'm not alone on this one! I'll see what I can do by looking through all the obscure hidden corners and arcane menus of Word.

A couple things, though. First, I already had this problem when working with Word 97, so the problem isn't new. I'm now working on Word 2011, so if it is a problem with Word, it's one that has been recurrent for some time. Second, interestingly, I don't have the same problem when importing text from sites like this one (this is a link to the French Bible Society)--Word reads it as French in my French language document:

Sorry for all the troubles you've been experiencing. Your experience is a little baffling. I hope there is an easy solution to this. It could just be a setting in MS Word (which was my experience).

By the way, I clicked on your link to the French Bible Society. I love the way La Bible en franšais courant reads. There is a real simple beauty to it, in my opinion. So I guess the passe simple is still used even in Francais courant, huh?

Sorry for all the troubles you've been experiencing. Your experience is a little baffling. I hope there is an easy solution to this. It could just be a setting in MS Word (which was my experience).

By the way, I clicked on your link to the French Bible Society. I love the way La Bible en franšais courant reads. There is a real simple beauty to it, in my opinion. So I guess the passe simple is still used even in Francais courant, huh?

Irving

Hello Irving,

Yes, the Bible en franšais courant reads quite smoothly. It's the version we usually use for family devotions. Younger children can follow it quite easily. As a version, it falls between a dynamic equivalent and a paraphrase, leaning heavily to the latter, so it is not really suited for primary exegetical research. That being said, the translators have--generally--made good good exegetical choices in rendering difficult passages, and often take into consideration readings from the LXX in the OT books. So it really is an interesting version.

As for the passÚ simple, yes, it's standard to use it in written narrative texts. As a linguistic phenomenon, it's not on the way out, not yet anyway. It is even used on occasion in spoken French, usually to mark emphasis in a quasi literary manner, i.e.: "Quelle ne fut pas ma surprise quand je appris cela."